Tactus Technology understands that the physical keyboard is essentially dead because people want to have more screen real estate for gaming and other highly interactive apps. But what if they could produce an on-demand physical keyboard that popped up through your touch screen? Think about the difference this could make in gaming controls or texting for those that miss their old physical keyboard. Seem impossible? In the video below, Tactus shows off their vision and expects to have the technology for it ready to ship by the middle of 2013.

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Looks like it is 2 layers of a film that allows you to magnetically polarize any area of each independently creating areas that attract and repel each other (Raised areas). My guess is you can vary the level of “repelling” to adjust the level of resistance (feedback) felt when depressing the button. Pretty cool technology.

calculatorwatch

I remember seeing this when it was just a concept shortly after the iPhone first came out. I didn’t think it would happen any time soon and I still don’t think it has a great shot. It just seems too squishy to really be satisfying when you press the buttons and certainly not as good as glass for plain touchscreen use. Oh well, I still think this will be the future once they can really get it right.

eddieonofre

Tactus A New Dimension Of Touch…….

LOL sounds like a moto for a new condom

Ahku Droid

I have a few concerns for this tech.

1. The screen will likely have to be a softer material like plastic instead of glass and therefore be prone to excessive scratching.
2. The “fluid based” path they raise the keys with sound like if dropped or hit incorrectly could puncture and stop working.
3. The constant change of the screen would likely drain lots of battery power.

Re-engineer it to “inflate” when phone’s accelerometer detects a 1.5 second freefall. It should work like an airbag for cellphones. Today’s and tomorrow’s devices are rapidly becoming more expensive. Maybe this could help when I drop my phone on the ground… or in the toilet?

Andrew Bernath

In 1.5 seconds of free fall the phone will have fallen 36 feet. Probably no airbag that can be inflated from the surface of the phone is going to save it. Assuming you held the phone at about 5 feet off the ground, you’d have to detect free fall AND inflate the airbag in less than 0.3 seconds.

Andrew Bernath

Sorry, less than 0.55 seconds. Forgot to take a square root… 🙂

marc

Nerd alert! (Sorry … it had to be done)

asdfasdf

Someone with a bright future and a nice career alert! (Sorry… it had to be done.)

Steve Schneider

And it has to accelerate, where’s your formula sir?

Andrew Bernath

Standard motion formula from calculus/kinetics section of physics.
x(t) = x0 + v0*t + (a*t^2)/2. Set initial position to 5 ft, initial velocity to 0 ft/s, acceleration to -32.2 ft/s^2, and x(t) = 0. Solve this for t and you see that dropping an object from 5 feet (even accounting for acceleration), the phone will hit the ground in just over half a second. Of course we can nitpick over air resistance, but seeing as how we are nowhere near reaching terminal velocity, I think we can likely ignore any frictional effects of air.

CivilDroid

you have been owned, Chad Stevens

Andrew Bernath

No harm intended, just a friendly physics comment. I’m not trying to “own” anyone, just reminding and educating.

By the time this is perfected, the world will have long been over it. I personally would not want this on my phone.

RedPandaAlex

All else being equal, I’d rather have a physical keyboard than not. But I’m not getting another non-nexus device again. So hopefully one of the five nexi we’re supposed to be getting in the fall will have a keyboard.

boostedcx

Only newbs no longer have physical keyboards. “Essentially dead”? DROID4 FTW. How exactly do physical keyboards REDUCE screen real estate? I think you have that one backwards.

nightscout13

There’s always a drawback, like for example, you wont be able to see the screen clearly, and it will scratch easy.

delta504

I don’t see this becoming mainstream. In the world of devices getting slimmer and expected to be small sliver of glass in the future (Day made of glass anyone?), touch screen or even gesture above screen will be the direction. I also don’t see how they can make this technology seamless, even from the video it looks like when “deflated” the surface is not smooth at all.

Im sure they test but they can only do so much with something like this. It just looks fragile which is my entire point. I dont think there is an easy way around that fragility without sacrificing other things.

I just think a lot of stupid people are going to put phone in their pocket or purse with the keyboard up and their keys are gonna pop it.

This would only be useful if the “buttons” retracted and were made flat when you pressed them (and then popped back up when you removed your finger), which would give you the feedback of a physical keyboard. If they just stayed raised all the time even when pressed, that doesn’t do much good.